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Here Thar Be Monsters!

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3.4.17

Anarchy Is Bliss

When no one is looking, some jerk declares him- or herself king, appointed by God with unquestionable powers. He or she can take any or all of your property by declaring a new law this morning over breakfast and by the way, you are property, too. Oh, and their kids will be the all-powerful rulers after they die. This is monarchy.

All the folks in your neighborhood get together and decide they are going to charge you a fee to use your car on the neighborhood streets. If you refuse to pay, they will storm your house and take everything you own. That's called democracy.

All the people in the neighborhood get together and elect a representative to come to your house and extract a fee to use you car on the neighborhood streets. If you don't comply, they will nominate other representatives to force you to pay, or yet others will take away your property. This is called representative democracy.

All the companies in your neighborhood bribe the elected officials to take whatever want from you, regardless of whether you follow the rules or not. This is called fascism.

Self-appointed "representatives" take over all the companies in your neighborhood and use them to take whatever they want from you, regardless of whether you follow the rules or not. This is called socialism.

All the folks in the neighborhood decide they are going to share everything equally. One neighbor can come and help himself to your Makita carbide-tipped circular saw for as long as he needs it, but hey!-you can use his Maserati whenever no one else is (which is almost never). Ultimately, everyone downgrades to the cheapest crap since they will lose it anyway. This is called communism.

In all the above systems of government are immoral on their face. There is nothing that justifies any of these organizations in taking your property. Even if you are duped into participating in an "election" of representatives, there is still no moral justification to deprive you of your property or compel you to follow rules you don't agree with.

In other words, there is no such thing as moral government. It doesn't exist. In all of time and history, there has never been a moral government, only less malignant ones. At some level and at some point, they all use some justification to take your property "for the greater good," and whether the justification is an imaginary deity or 63 million of your neighbors, it is all immoral.

My lifelong friend and a successful Miami lawyer said to me, "Hey, taxes are the price of admission."

I responded, "So, if your neighborhood Kiwanis club decides you owe dues, and if you don't pay, they show up at your door with guns and take your stuff, that's OK?"

"Well, of course not," he said, "But that's different."

"In what way," I inquired.

"Governments operate by the consent of the people. They create laws and members of society must follow those laws."

"So, if Dade County voters decided that all lawyers should immediciately be divested of their property and codify it in law, that's OK? Even if they require you to pay taxes to pay the enforcers who show up at your door to take your property and put you on the street?"

"That's an absurd proposition," he argued. "That cannot happen because there are layers of checks to prevent it."

I pressed on, "I don't agree with my country going and bombing non-aggressive countries into the Stone Age simply because they want to accept something other than dollars for their raw materials. If I want to fight it, I must use the very system that is doing the evil acts, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, hire a team of lawyers who are officers of that same system, just to register my disgust? I would lose in that stacked game before I even started, since the system can decide whether or not it wants to hear my case."

(Pause) "You can move to another country," he countered.

"Oh, so if I don't agree with the Kiwanis demanding dues for a club I don't want to join, I am free to choose another location where the Rotarians or Lions or whoever can demand fees for clubs I don't want to join?"

"Yep, that's about the sum of it," he declared.

"That's immoral," I protested.

"That's life," he said, dismissing the entire issue.

In point of fact, the only moral form of governance is that of Self. I have the right and moral authority to govern myself. That's it. End of story. To the extent that my wife has half-interest in my property, she has an equal say in its use and disposal. In that we have guardianship and responsibility for minor children, we can guide and direct them. That is the full extent of any human's authority. No amount of "backup" in the form of guns or people or machines changes the equation. All they do is modify the odds of the outcome.

Within the bounds of my Self and my property, I have the moral right to use and dispose of it however I like, provided I don't cause harm or damage to anyone else.

Think of it - how many social problems in the world right now would be solved by this simple change? No need for "special" rights. No need for draconian laws. No wars of mass destruction. No human having more or less authority than any other human.

In other words, anarchy is the only moral form of governance ever conceived by humans, and it is the most vilified form, as well. Probably a relationship there.

Anarchy does not create chaos, it alleviates it. When people are left alone to live their lives however they see fit, there is nothing to argue about. Chaos is caused by immoral acts perpetrated by immoral organizations using whatever justifications come to hand. What follows is war, strife and despair.

The one thing we all fear most - chaos - is the very thing we create with our institutional "authorities". Since the information we are given is wrong - by accident or design - we can never make a right choice based on it. Anarchy is good, moral and necessary for genuine peace and happiness - and it is the one thing the immoral organizations fear the most.

In other words, keep you cotton-pickin' hands off my stuff, and I'll do the same for you.